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Eric Lach

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Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website?s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl@talkingpointsmemo.com

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Lawmakers in Michigan are moving forward with legislation to implement roadside saliva tests for marijuana, despite word from researchers that the tests are far from perfect. According to The Detroit Free Press, the bill would make Michigan the first state to adopt the test.

The notion that Attorney General Eric Holder was interested in some kind of "gun tracking bracelets" bounced around right-wing news outlets last week, before being quickly debunked. But just because an idea has been debunked, doesn't mean it's dead. Not in politics. Not online. Enter Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

Glenn Spencer has a long history of incendiary and often conspiratorial comments about Mexicans, Mexican immigrants, Mexican-Americans and Jews. He is widely credited with popularizing the conspiracy theory that holds that Mexican immigrants plan to take over the southwestern United States, reunite it with Mexico and perhaps even rename it Aztlan, a name from Mexico's pre-Conquest past. He's also the chairman of an anti-immigrant border activist group called American Border Patrol (ABP), which is widely considered an anti-immigrant hate group. But as we learned last week, Spencer does not like being called a member of a "hate group."

Last week, TPM received a so-called "demand letter" penned by Spencer's lawyer, John Munger, demanding a retraction and apology for an article about the group and further claiming that the respected Southern Poverty Law Center, which was the primary source for the article, is an organization whose "credibility ... is in tatters." ”The [American Border Patrol] is neither a 'hate group' nor 'anti-immigrant,' and characterizing it as such is an insult to the over 30,000 men and women who are proud supporters of the [American Border Patrol's] work to support law enforcement and border security," the letter said.

A review by TPM's legal team concluded that American Border Patrol's threat of a suit was without merit both as to the facts and the law. Further reporting by the TPM news team suggests that Spencer's concern went far beyond TPM - sending similar letters to the Huffington Post and Phoenix television station KTVK, according to the ABP website. The Southern Poverty Law Center confirmed this week it received one, too. And Spencer's chief concern about the prevalence of the label appears to be that it is proving an obstacle to his efforts to sell new border-related technology to the U.S. government.

A Port Authority of New York and New Jersey commissioner resigned Monday following news of a second criminal investigation into the agency's ties to Gov. Chris Christie, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Frazier Glenn Miller's wife Marge was at home Sunday night when she got a phone call from The Southern Poverty Law Center. Yes, she told the Center, she'd spoken to her husband that morning. And yes, she said, law enforcement had shown up at her door that night. They told her that husband had been arrested for killing three people at two Jewish centers.

Wisconsin state Senate President Mike Ellis (R), who has held elected office in the state since 1970, on Friday dropped his bid for reelection, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Ellis made the move two days after he was featured in conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe's latest hidden-camera video project.

Former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland (R), who served 10 months in prison after being forced from office in 2004, was indicted Thursday on new charges related to two congressional campaigns, according to The Hartford Courant.